Amravati Project: TDP, YSRC trade barbs as World Bank pulls out

The World Bank on Friday said it had pulled out of the Andhra Pradesh government’s Amaravati capital city project following the withdrawal of request by the Government of India.

Responding to an e-mail query, World Bank’s lead external advisor (special projects) for India Sudip Mozumdar said the Government of India had withdrawn its request to the bank for financing the proposed Amaravati Sustainable Infrastructure and Institutional Development Project.

“The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors has been informed that the proposed project is no longer under preparation following the government’s decision,” he said, without elaborating why the Centre had taken the decision.

A senior official in the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority, the nodal agency for the Amaravati project, said on condition of anonymity that the state government had not agreed to the World Bank’s proposal to inspect the work undertaken so far as they had been taken up with loans obtained from other lending agencies.

The ruling YSR Congress Party and Telugu Desam Party are indulging



in a blame game for the World Bank backing out of the Amaravati project.

YSR Congress MLA and government chief whip G Srikanth Reddy claimed the World Bank had rejected the loan because of irregularities in the project. “The bank authorities have come to know that the previous TDP government indulged in massive corruption in the land pooling and meted out gross injustice to Dalit farmers who were assigned government plots and tenant farmers,” he alleged before the media.

“Naidu brought a bad name to Andhra Pradesh at the international level with his illegal land dealings in Amaravati, which resulted in the World Bank opting out of the project,” he alleged.

Naidu reacted sharply to the allegations, pointing fingers at the Jagan Reddy government for the latest development. “YSRC leaders were behind the complaints lodged by some farmers with the World Bank. Now, no external funding agency will be forthcoming to give loans for any project,” he claimed.

“We had commenced infrastructure work... The present government didn’t have much to do except continue the work,” he lamented.